Smooth Horsefish

The smooth horsefish is a compressed fish with a long continuous dorsal fin that is very high over the head and which contains 20 or 21 spines and between 13 and 15 soft rays. The anal fin lacks any pines and has 7 or 8 soft rays. There is a projecting snout with a small, terminal mouth and a single nostril at each side. The adults are smooth skinned but the skin of juveniles is covered with small rough bumps. This species attains a maximum published total length of 76 cm (30 in) but a total length of 30 cm (12 in) is more typical. The juveniles are pale brown in colour broken with irregular darker brown markings, while the adults are plain dark brown.

The smooth horsefish is endemic to the temperate waters of southern Africa where it is found from Namibia in the Atlantic Ocean around the Cape of Good Hope to the coast of KwaZulu-Natal in the Indian Ocean. This is a demersal fish which lives at depths of 10 to 146 m (33 to 479 ft) on rocky reefs and sandy seabeds.